Tag: book

“Today’s mania for take-out food & the disappearance of home cooking have two related causes – smaller households & working women. (No man ever gave up cooking because he went back to work.) Are these trends likely to continue? With the aid of a see-through plastic ruler, I have projected the past twenty-five years of U.S. Census Bureau figures into the future, & the results are chilling.

Item: by the year 2050 the average family size will have decreased to about one person. everyone in America will be living alone.

Item: All women older than eighteen will be working outside the home.

Item: All women will be older than eighteen.

The inevitable conclusion is that by the year 2050, everyone will order take-out food at every meal.

Eating will become extremely expensive. You will need an annual income of at least $392, 114 in current dollars to get by. Grazing my way from one end of Manhattan to the other, I found that a modestly upscale take-out breakfast, lunch & dinner cost $40 plus $7 for taxi or $54, 896 a year for an average family of 3.2 persons. Department of Agriculture figures show that the average American family spends 14 percent of its income on food. Therefore, it must earn $392, 114 a year.

Finding good take-out food is not easy. Searching it out will become your full-time occupation in the year 2050, more than cooking ever was. Americans will once again become a lonely race of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers prowling the darkened city streets, wallets honed & sharpened, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting pint of pasta primavera & snare the slow-footed slice of pâté de campagne. We will scarcely have time to eat.”

How We Live Today
April 1988an excerpt from “The Man Who Ate Everything” by Jeffrey Steingarten

A month ago, I found out that my favourite food magazine subscription Lucky Peach was halting publication because of “creative differences” between David Chang (chef & owner of Momofuku) & veteran food writer Peter Meehan. That magazine was a staple part of my diet (ha…) & I was devastated for about two days until I was recommended this book. It’s a relief to get my necessary dose of satirical food writing! Read this collection of essays by Vogue food critic Jeffrey Steingarten if you’re in need of a good laugh.